


Freedom Ain't Easy

by FancyFree2813



Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:13:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27391759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancyFree2813/pseuds/FancyFree2813
Summary: Another look at the character we all love to hate.
Kudos: 2





	Freedom Ain't Easy

**Author's Note:**

> This story is another answer to my own challenge: write a story, in 1000 words or less, that carries the title of one of the songs from the Gross and Keeley CD 'Give the Dog a Bone'.

Freedom Ain't Easy

I heard an expression recently, actually I think it was the title of a song, but I don't really remember, and it’s not really important. It struck me as rather odd and set me to thinking about its validity. The expression was 'freedom ain't easy'. 

Let me tell you a little story, and then I'll let you decide, for I'm still uncertain.

I led a relatively happy childhood, I guess. I don't have much basis for comparison, but I assume that I was happy because I became very unhappy somewhere around my tenth birthday. It was then that I really learned about the true meaning of happiness, or rather the lack of it. It was then that my mother married a man, who…well, let's just say he didn't like me much. 

By the time I was sixteen I was out of there, preferring to live on the street rather than be subjected to my mother's husband's heavy hand for another moment. I wandered aimlessly through life for a couple of years after that before I met Jolly.

Jolly was the first man I ever loved, if love is a word that can be used to describe the feelings we had for each other. He was a grown man, all of twenty. He took me under his wing, among other places, and led me into a life of action and excitement. And crime. 

When I was not quite twenty Jolly and another guy and I robbed a bank, just for kicks. Yeah, right. It was because of the robbery that Jolly deserted me and I met the second, and only really true love of my life. He was a cop. Actually, I had crossed into Canada by then, so he wasn't just any cop, he was a Mountie who had been sent to run me to ground. One of those 'always gets his man', 'bring 'em back alive', straight arrow types, and absolutely the most beautiful man I had ever seen. 

I would have fallen in love with the Mountie even if he hadn't saved my life on that mountainside, I'm sure of that. But he became my salvation in those few days we spent together, my rescuer from death and from life. At least the only life I had ever known. He taught me about the deep, forever after, soul wrenching kind of love. He taught me to feel the kind of love that I thought might finally fill that dark, empty place inside me. That kind of perfect love that that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. Surprised to learn that I've read the Bible? Not as surprised as I was when I actually read it. 

But even perfect love isn't perfect. I begged him! Me, who'd never begged for anything in my entire life. I begged him to let me go. I would have done anything, anything for him if he had just looked the other way for a few moments and let me get away. But no, he had his duty. You see, I had fallen in love with a man who, I learned much too late, would never allow anything, even love to interfere with his sworn duty to the law. 

I spent seven years reconsidering how I felt about Ben. But even after all that time, the day they set me free I still wasn't sure. Oh, I never stopped loving him, but I also learned to hate him more than I thought it was humanly possible to hate anything. You see, for as much as he taught me about love, he also taught me about betrayal.

Don't ever let anyone tell you that prison rehabilitates. That's a lie. It nurtures. It hones. It grinds to razor-sharp intensity that thing about an individual that is the most intricate part of their person. In my case it was hatred. Hatred of all things male. My mother's husband, Jolly, and now Ben.

I used the seven years well. I had plenty of time to plan what I would do when I was released. I plotted my revenge carefully, spending hours going over and over again what I would do to him. The plan changed numerous times, but always, in all of its various incarnations, the ultimate goal remained the same – the complete and utter domination of Benton Fraser. I was always a model prisoner, committing only one crime in the entire span of my incarceration, a crime for which I could never be accused, tried or convicted – a crime of mind. 

I stepped out of that prison, free from the walls that confined my body, but not then and not to this day, free of the darkness that confined my soul. 

My plan didn't work exactly as I had envisioned, however. I know that Ben is dead, his partner killed him as I watched, as he tried to flee with me. I am rather ambivalent about that, because I know with a certainty born from the bond of love and hatred that I felt for him that if Vecchio had not destroyed Ben I would have. His destruction is not what I had originally intended, but I wish I could have been the one to pull the trigger. I think. 

So now, because of what the men I've known have done to me, I am on the run. I've been running for almost the same length of time I was incarcerated. I spend my days watching over my shoulder for the inevitable cop/Mountie who will one day track me down to avenge the death of one of their own. I spend sleepless nights, afraid of the dreams that assail me when I do sleep. Dreams of Ben lying, dead on that train platform, or possibly even worse, dreams of him and me in a vine-covered cottage with curly brown haired tots playing in the yard. 

I have, just possibly, answered my own question. Yes, I suppose freedom ain't easy. But how could I know for sure? I have never really been free, have I? 

End


End file.
